“Suffragette City” by David Bowie

"Suffragette City" first snuck out in April 1972 as the flip side of "Starman", then roared onto The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, David Bowie's fifth album, and it's the dirtiest, most gleeful rocker in the whole Ziggy saga. Bowie wrote it and produced it with Ken Scott, cutting it at Trident Studios in London near the end of the album sessions with the Spiders: Mick Ronson on electric guitar, piano and synthesizer, Trevor Bolder on bass and Mick Woodmansey on drums.

It's pure piledriver glam, Ronson's guitar slashing like a switchblade, the band barreling ahead on a boogie that owes plenty to Little Richard and the Velvet Underground, and Bowie hollering with a leer. There's a nod to Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange in the words and a fake-out ending that lets the song catch its breath before it slams back in.

Bowie had first offered it to Mott the Hoople, who passed and cut his "All the Young Dudes" instead. Critics have raved about it ever since, NME among the publications ranking it with his greatest songs, and it came back as a single in 1976 to promote the Changesonebowie compilation in the UK. Bowie played it on tour after tour.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.